Equity Securities

Philosophy

Ameritas Investment Partners large cap portfolio managers use a growth-style approach to selecting equities. We focus our attention and research primarily on large U.S.-based companies. Our goal is to select stocks of companies with higher earnings potential, strong management, a relatively low debt structure, industry leadership and stock trading at reasonable valuations. Our managers look to identify companies that will be strong performers within their industries over the long term.

Strategy

Our  investment strategy centers around a thorough research process. Our process involves researching the companies, analyzing their industries and developing a sound, well-thought-out basis for making a well-informed investment decision.

We receive real-time external research and discuss the research  with industry analysts, who provide clarity on their respective recommendations. Complementing that research, our managers may meet with the management teams of candidate investment companies. Our analysis blends all of this information and provides the insights to make quality investment decisions.

In addition to bottom-up company research, our managers conduct an economic analysis. We apply this information, when appropriate, to optimize company weightings by industry or sector to the most attractive levels based on their economic forecast. The change in weightings does not override the company’s diversification discipline. Individual company weightings generally range within 1.0 percent to 5.0 percent of the benchmark.

Ameritas Investment Partners managers do not engage in market timing or rely exclusively on technical analysis. We take a long-term perspective when evaluating companies as investments and look for investments that should outperform over time and over the course of business cycles.